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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Joshua 23

Joshua is now no longer ignored by me for 11 months. I was surprised to see this chapter pop up to 57% done by automation in my list. I think it is the repeated Deuteronomic phrasing in it. Warnings of the relationship between faithfulness and consequences are not our strong point as human beings.

Whoever thinks that they are not electing a pastor should consider the consequences (here and throughout the canonical history) of the impact of a leader on the fate of the people. There can be no disjunction between our moral or business choices and our faithfulness to the Holy One. Our choices determine what we really believe. And they reveal our ignorance or knowledge, our integrity (נפשׁ), our true soul, if you wish, to everyone including ourselves.

I am glad to see my hedge funds are behaving a little better today.

Note the use of 'remember' as a religious framework for worship. We still do it today. What is it we chose to remember together? This reveals what we value.

You see I have let fall to you these nations that are still here, to be an inheritance to your bands,
from the Jordan and all the nations that I have cut off, and the great sea from the going down of the sun.

That you do not come among these nations, these that are still here with you.
And in the name of their God you will not remember, and you will not make an oath, and you will not serve them, and you will not prostrate yourselves to them.

to know, you will know. For Yahweh your God will not again dispossess these nations from before you,
but they will become for you a snare, and a trap, and a scourge in your sides, and barbs in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that Yahweh your God gave to you.

But behold, I am going today on the way of all the earth.
And you will know with all your heart and with all your being, that not one word has fallen from all the good things that Yahweh your God spoke concerning you. The whole has come to you. Not one word has fallen from it.

And it will happen as had come upon you all the good word that Yahweh your God spoke to you,
so Yahweh will bring upon you all the the evil word until it exterminates you from off this good ground that Yahweh your God gave to you.

When you are bypassing the covenant of Yahweh your God that he commanded you, and you go and serve other gods and prostrate yourselves to them,
then the anger of Yahweh will burn among you and you will perish swiftly from off the good land that he gave to you.